Velothi Amulet - keep the idea, but less overpowered

CerbinTalYalas · April 2023

Well, let's talk about the most questioned mythic item of this patch ...

Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet – Necklace
1 – Adds 4968 Offensive Penetration
1 – Increase your damage done to monsters by 15%, Critical Damage by 15%, and reduce your Light and Heavy Attack damage by 99%.

Before going into the item discussion on itself, I would like to say the idea behind this item is really nice, giving players who are new to ESO and/or not proficient with weaving a way to actually do decent damage is in my opinion a really good thing to give them access to harder content.
However, and I think the major part of the HL player base will agree with me on this point, giving tools to weaker players to perform better is nice, but they shouldn't be able to overperform players who are really proficient with their characters, and skill should aways be more rewarding than gear.

Now let's have a look at the item itself.
First, the numbers : 15% damage done and 15% crit damage. I didn't dig into the maths enough to comment on these without hesitation, but I'd say these are a bit too high, and lowering these numbers to 10% would keep the item powerful without being overpowered.
I'd also like to make a little suggestion that would keep the idea of benefiting the weaker players, but in a way that the item would not feel like "free gear buff", and in a didactic way - you'll see where I'm going...
So here's my reworked amulet suggestion :

Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet
1 – Adds 4968 Offensive Penetration
1 – Dealing damage with a light or heavy attack increases your damage done to monsters by 10% and Critical Damage by 10% for 5 seconds, or extends the duration by 5 seconds if you already benefit from this effect, up to 15 seconds. Reduce your Light and Heavy Attack damage by 99%.

With this rework, you still have to work on your light attacks to benefit from this effect, so you can't just pass on LAs, but you have a wider margin for error : assuming the ideal 1 LA / second, you can miss up to 4 LAs and still benefit from the buff, and with every LA you land you get extra time to land the next one. This way, you'll still have to keep weaving in mind, but with way more tolerance to mistake.
(I also considered buff stacking instead duration stacking, like every LA gives 2% bonus up to 10%, but it sounded too similar to NB grim focus to me, and not beginner-friendly enough, as you'll have to build stacks from scratch if you loose the buff).

Feel free to discuss this suggestion (especially the numbers, I picked them based on my own perception but they could clearly be different) or to bring up your own ideas

Jessythesavage · April 2023

If they keep the same penetration id be happy might help kill the tank meta in pvp tho

FantasticFreddie · April 2023

I think this is a totally reasonable change. Since crit damage is already capped, I think that's fine to stay as is or change, I don't think bumping it back to 10% would have any affect ln most endgame raiders, but it might be worth looking at lower end teams.
Light attacks account for about 10-12% damage on most parses iirc, so 10% bonus on the mythic seems like it would be an honest attempt to raise the floor without lowering the ceiling, which I love.

I love the pen line as well-- it will open up some new options for gear and stuff.

Zezin · April 2023

FantasticFreddie wrote: »

I think this is a totally reasonable change. Since crit damage is already capped, I think that's fine to stay as is or change, I don't think bumping it back to 10% would have any affect ln most endgame raiders, but it might be worth looking at lower end teams.
Light attacks account for about 10-12% damage on most parses iirc, so 10% bonus on the mythic seems like it would be an honest attempt to raise the floor without lowering the ceiling, which I love.

I love the pen line as well-- it will open up some new options for gear and stuff.

That's fairly old numbers, nowadays it's closer to 7~8%

CerbinTalYalas · April 2023

Jessythesavage wrote: »

If they keep the same penetration id be happy might help kill the tank meta in pvp tho

No reason to change the Pen, imo it's just a nice bonus as is.

Zezin wrote: »

That's fairly old numbers, nowadays it's closer to 7~8%

7~8% including enchants and everything that procs from LAs as well or juste raw LAs ?

Zezin · April 2023

CerbinTalYalas wrote: »

Jessythesavage wrote: »

If they keep the same penetration id be happy might help kill the tank meta in pvp tho

No reason to change the Pen, imo it's just a nice bonus as is.

Zezin wrote: »

That's fairly old numbers, nowadays it's closer to 7~8%

7~8% including enchants and everything that procs from LAs as well or juste raw LAs ?

the mythic only takes away the damage from LAs, weaving and proccing enchants and sets will work the same with or without it.

FantasticFreddie · April 2023

CerbinTalYalas wrote: »

Jessythesavage wrote: »

If they keep the same penetration id be happy might help kill the tank meta in pvp tho

No reason to change the Pen, imo it's just a nice bonus as is.

Zezin wrote: »

That's fairly old numbers, nowadays it's closer to 7~8%

7~8% including enchants and everything that procs from LAs as well or juste raw LAs ?

Yeah there are some very strong set options that proc on light attacks as well. Maximum damage would still be light attack weaving, or close to

Zezin · April 2023

I intend to use this item and still plan to weave the same as before, it's a waste not to, you'd miss out on ulti gen, glyphs, sets, etc.

CerbinTalYalas · April 2023

Zezin wrote: »

I intend to use this item and still plan to weave the same as before, it's a waste not to, you'd miss out on ulti gen, glyphs, sets, etc.

Yeah, the goal with this change is to make Velothi builds comparable to regular raid ones with perfect weaving, and not too far below with unperfect weaving.

Zezin · April 2023

CerbinTalYalas wrote: »

Zezin wrote: »

I intend to use this item and still plan to weave the same as before, it's a waste not to, you'd miss out on ulti gen, glyphs, sets, etc.

Yeah, the goal with this change is to make Velothi builds comparable to regular raid ones with perfect weaving, and not too far below with unperfect weaving.

With the bonus it's giving it would be fait to say it's probably going to be meta in aoe fights at the very least, and most likely the meta for any non-optimized groups.

Even for optimized groups it can become meta depending on how people shuffle the support sets to accommodate it, hard to say atm.

Zezin · April 2023

Also BiS for any 4 man and solo content, zero doubts there.

Ecgberht_confused · April 2023

Jessythesavage wrote: »

If they keep the same penetration id be happy might help kill the tank meta in pvp tho

This is mostly a pve only mythic. The 15%damage done only applies to monsters not players.

Which is not very sensible I think. That much pen is wasted on a mythic that doesn't apply to players. Which makes me think the change to monsters only was made last second and they didn't adjust the rest of the effects. Indeed the tooltip that was released before the pts by youtubers who had an early look didn't have this monsters only condition (and the crit damage was 28% not 15%, so it was heavily nerfed from before the pts)

Ecgberht_confused · April 2023

I hope it makes it to live as it is without further nerfs. I want to try it in pve with arcanist where you already have 5 seconds channels without LAs

jaws343 · April 2023

Ecgberht_confused wrote: »

Jessythesavage wrote: »

If they keep the same penetration id be happy might help kill the tank meta in pvp tho

This is mostly a pve only mythic. The 15%damage done only applies to monsters not players.

Which is not very sensible I think. That much pen is wasted on a mythic that doesn't apply to players. Which makes me think the change to monsters only was made last second and they didn't adjust the rest of the effects. Indeed the tooltip that was released before the pts by youtubers who had an early look didn't have this monsters only condition (and the crit damage was 28% not 15%, so it was heavily nerfed from before the pts)

That much pen is actually kind of perfect for solo arenas and other solo content, even disorganized group content, like 4 man pug dungeons. Especially so for add pulls.

Vahndamme · April 2023

Keep it as it is

Shepoffire · April 2023

It doesn't need changing tbh. It's quite underwhelming. Like it'll be fun for sure. I'd say if anything drop the damage done and crit damage down to 10% then add minor slayer and minor ageis and let the 10% work in pvp. The tank meta and all the hots/maras balm kay actually have a contender would also help some of those lower classes like plat and cro a bit more bite too. It's no fun when no one's dies in pvp.

frogthroat · April 2023

CerbinTalYalas wrote: »

With this rework, you still have to work on your light attacks to benefit from this effect, so you can't just pass on LAs, but you have a wider margin for error : assuming the ideal 1 LA / second, you can miss up to 4 LAs and still benefit from the buff, and with every LA you land you get extra time to land the next one. This way, you'll still have to keep weaving in mind, but with way more tolerance to mistake.

Nice idea, but a couple of thoughts:
I think this is created with Arcanist in mind. With its 4.5 second channels, I don't think 5 second stacks would be good. It cuts quite close. You would have an extra minigame. It would make crux creation mandatory. First you la-weave and create 3 cruxes and get the 15 seconds, then you can channel your 4.5 second beam. Of course this is the ideal way if you want to channel, but the long channel itself already brings a lot of issues if there are mechanics you need to do while channelling. It would really make the build so that you must la-weave perfectly and have an uninterrupted 4.5 second channel for Arcanist to be effective. The 4.5 second channel is already troubling enough without any mandatory minigame added on top.

LA is not only damage from the hit itself. It also procs enchants, some sets and does ulti regen. Even with 99% reduction in damage, you should still la-weave.

Quethrosar · April 2023

How about a mythic that detects the hardware you play on and makes it equatable in damage?
use a controller ? you already can weave easy but aiming is probably a pain.
use a keyboard and standard mouse? you need alot of help with weave.
use a keyboard and mmorpg mouse? we will give you damage for buying hardware just so you can weave.

ixthUA · April 2023

Its not out yet and people are already asking for nerfs.

frogthroat · April 2023

Quethrosar wrote: »

How about a mythic that detects the hardware you play on and makes it equatable in damage?
use a controller ? you already can weave easy but aiming is probably a pain.
use a keyboard and standard mouse? you need alot of help with weave.
use a keyboard and mmorpg mouse? we will give you damage for buying hardware just so you can weave.

How about a mythic that detects how you are using the hardware?

For an example of a 82k trial dummy parse using feet, search Youtube for:
Purilainen trial dummy parse only using feet

EramTheLiar · April 2023

The proposed change looks like it requires you weave in order to keep it going, which is kind of funny for a mythic that appears designed to allow people who don't want to weave to get a damage boost.

Edited to add lowering it from 15% to 10% is... ok, I guess? I mean, given that LA are a 10-12% buff as the OP stated, if the point of this mythic to just flat-out replace weaving altogether in terms of damage I guess that's fine. But the 5 second thing seems counter-intuitive.

Edited ONE MORE TIME (sorry) to note that if the point is just to swap LA with this, but at a slightly lower level so people who are generally good at weaving don't get overshadowed by it (for the record I think that's reasonable, I'm impressed by the ability to pull it off) then remove the restriction of "monsters only" so it can be brought into PvP as well.